After riding Walkers crazy strong factory 300 and Watsons mega smooth 250f I was very eager to find out how the 350f factory bikes of Sanz and Robert would handle!

After a little lunch break the sun came through the clouds and Antoine Meo finally opened up his mega flowy and partially technical but mostly crazy fast, big loop! We had spied it earlier but it had been to muddy to ride in the morning so we were all stoked to be able to finally get out on it!

I started off on Laia’s 350 and while her engine power and drive felt rather stock (she uses the serial 6 gear transmission too) her suspension setup felt like it was the stiffest and most aggressive setup out of all four bikes!

She uses a low seat what I am more familiar with and as the big loop was really fast in most bits I also really enjoyed the stiff suspension setup because it didn’t dip down at the back when you turned on the power to the back wheel. The stiffer suspension resulted in immediate forward drive.

Taylor Roberts 350, on the other hand, felt like a completely different bike! He uses a Motocross 5 gear transmission like Walker and Watson and a little softer suspension setup than Sanz (still crazy stiff at lower speed) a very MX styled handlebar setup and one of those funny stepped seats that force your seat position to either low and far up front or high up on the back. The seat made the bike feel quite weird in the beginning but you start to understand the benefits of it already after the third berm.

Riding Roberts 350 on these long bumpy worn out fast straights felt unreal… no matter how hard I tried to push the 350 it never felt like the bike would have enough. I also never got used to the braking power of these factory Brembo calipers, they use smaller pistons than stock so u have to move less fluid to achieve more braking power. 5th gear tapped to zero felt like half of the distance I would need on my bike!

In the end, I was really surprised that I actually enjoyed riding all four factory bikes simply because I literally spent decades wondering how these Factory Bikes would feel but never thought that one day a hobby rider like me would get a chance to enjoy riding them. They actually simply feel like your own KTM, the only difference is when you ride a factory bike there is really no room for excuses as the bikes let you push really h

To pick a favourite out of the 4 Factory KTM’s is tough but I would probably go with Nathan Watsons 250f, simply because it felt like I could do anything to that bike without any risk of sketching out or getting worn out from too much power and I could still ride it really fast.